The present disclosure herein relates to semiconductor chips and methods of fabricating the same, and more particularly, to semiconductor chips having guard rings and method of fabricating the same.
Semiconductor devices may include integrated circuits having specific functions. The integrated circuits may be completed by fanning a number of discrete devices in a limited area of a semiconductor substrate. The discrete devices may include active elements such as transistors and passive elements such as resistors and capacitors.
The integrated circuits may be formed in main chip regions of the semiconductor substrate. The main chip regions may provide a scribe lane region therebetween. After the integrated circuits are formed, the semiconductor substrate in the scribe lane region may be cut to provide a plurality of semiconductor chips physically separated from each other. This process may also be referred to as a die sawing process. The respective discrete semiconductor chips may be encapsulated through an assembly process so that the semiconductor chips are protected from external environments. During the die sawing process, the semiconductor substrate in the scribe lane region and material layers thereon may be physically cut using a sawing blade. Accordingly, stresses caused by physical frictions between the sawing blade and the material layers (or the semiconductor substrate) may be generated in the die sawing process. These stresses may be delivered to material layers constituting the integrated circuit in the main chip region to cause cracks. The cracks may cause a malfunction of the integrated circuit formed in the main chip region, or may degrade the reliability of the integrated circuit.